Discussion

Figure 1: Parsimony Method

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Figure 2: Max Likelihood Method

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There are obvious differences between Figure 1 (Parsimony method) and Figure 2 (Maximum likelihood method). Figure 2 separates human and orangutan sequences from the rest of the eukaryotes and places it opposite of the bacterial sequence. This goes against the generalized tree of life, where eukaryotes branch from early prokaryotes with multicellular organisms being more divergent than yeast. This difference likely arose from the difference in the statistical methods used to develop these trees. Due to this discrepancy, Figure 1 will be the one analyzed further as Figure 2 is unreliable. Figure 1 supports our hypothesis that Human Beta hemoglobin is more closely related to other mammals. Due to the branching of the tree it can be claimed that our representative of birds (the chicken) is related somewhat between the mammal sequences and the amphibian sequences. However, the chicken sequence is much more highly related to the amphibian sequences than hypothesized. The relation of the other species is as predicted, with the bacterial sequence being the most distantly related to the human sequence.

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